


Present Tense

by Octinary



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Battle of Kaer Morhen, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Love, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Revenge, Swearing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27575486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octinary/pseuds/Octinary
Summary: After avenging Aiden’s death, Lambert was not particularly concerned with ensuring his own survival.  Luckily for everyone who still cared about the prickly bastard, his survival no longer seemed to be up to him.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Lambert/Keira Metz
Comments: 36
Kudos: 70
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #010





	Present Tense

Lambert remembered everything about that afternoon perfectly. It was early autumn and the weather was just starting to turn, so the wind was a little cool on his back where Aiden had rucked his shirt up a touch as he’d kissed him. The sky was overcast, but it didn’t smell like rain, so they both mercifully had a dry night ahead of them. He remembered the feel of the splinter he got in his palm from the wooden fence they’d taken turns pinning each other against all afternoon as they lazily loped through the fields towards the crossroads where Lambert would turn west and Aiden east on separate contracts. He remembered the smell of the long sweet grass the cattle were grazing on and the taste of it in Aiden’s mouth after he’d been chewing on a stem and the way his lover’s laugh had sounded when he teased him about being no more than some farm hick. He remembered how the sun had finally broken through the clouds just as it was setting and painted the landscape in soft golds and bronzes and reds.

“I love you,” he’d said quietly into Aiden’s shoulder for the first time as they embraced at the end. And then quickly, when he’d felt Aiden tense, “Fuck. Just ignore me. I’m babbling. You don’t have to say anything back. Just- Fuck. Just, meet me back here in two weeks and we’ll pretend it never happened. Okay?”

He had quickly turned and, not looking back, stormed off, leaving Aiden speechless at the crossroads. Damn it all! He hated saying it first. He hated saying it second too, actually. He hated saying it at all and he hated hearing it, (he wasn’t some sixteen year old maiden looking for her knight in shining armour for fuck’s sake), and he had no idea what had come over him to make him say it then other than that it was true. The sensation had been bubbling inside him for too long and was too strong and the soft light and lazy afternoon had snuck through the cracks in his armour like water inexorably seeping through clay bricks and making them weak.

“Lambert!” Aiden had called out, but hadn’t followed him, Lambert would have heard him if he did, so he recognized that he was being given the choice to just keep trudging away and nurse his wounded pride or turn back and let Aiden see that he was blushing, but hear whatever it was the Cat was going to say.

He turned back. If the gods were kind, silhouetted as he was by the setting sun, maybe Aiden wouldn’t be able to tell. The smirk that met him let him know that, unsurprisingly, the gods were not, in fact, kind.

“You didn’t beat me, asshole.”

“What?”

“You didn’t beat me. I said it first. A hundred times in a hundred ways. You’re just shit at listening.” And then Aiden had given him the finger and headed east.

Lambert remembered everything about that afternoon perfectly. Every minute, every gesture, every feeling was seared into his memory like a brand. Like he’d somehow known ahead of time that that was the last time he’d ever see Aiden alive.

*

Lambert was drunker than he had ever been before in his life, which, given some of the winter shenanigans at Kaer Morhen, was saying something. It was different though, being incapacitatingly inebriated at home where the worst that could happen was spilling embarassing stories and stupid dares and being so here, alone, outside Novigrad at the Seven Cats Inn where the worst thing that could happen was, well, happening.

One of his attackers’ boots connected with his ribs again and Lambert, lying in the mud, coughed up more blood. He fumbled to try to get his knees under him, but he hadn’t been able to stand under his own power when they’d dragged him off his barstool and out into the yard in the first place; the chances of being able to do so now, let alone fight back, were pretty fucking slim. Instinct forced him to try though, even as his mind told him to just give up. A shove on his shoulder and the world lurched jarringly and he was back down, breathing out spit and blood and breathing in shit and mud.

Whatever. Nothing mattered now. He’d done it. He’d fucking killed Jad Karadin, the man responsible for Aiden’s assassination. Geralt had helped, a small miracle really, since Lambert had been pretty sure his famously neutral older brother would have shied away from killing someone in cold blood in their own backyard while their wife and kids were blissfully going about their boringly domestic lives inside, not ten feet away. Maybe the White Wolf had no mercy in him for assassins, regardless of whether they’d claimed to have turned over a new leaf. Maybe he’d believed Lambert when he’d told him about finding evidence of Karadin’s supposed ‘new life’ being funded by his slave trade. Fuck, maybe it had just been the look in Lambert’s eyes, desperate and hollow. Whatever it was, he’d helped, and one retired witcher was no match for two active ones. Karadin was dead, Geralt had swanned off on whatever epic bullshit quest called to his noble soul and Lambert had started drinking. That had been a week ago.

“Ha! Not so ploughin’ tough after all, are you?” Another kick to the gut and Lambert would have thrown up, except he’d already emptied a stomach’s worth of semi-digested vodka onto the inn floor when they’d grabbed him. There were three of them. They hadn’t liked the look of him and they hadn’t liked being told to go get buggered when Lambert had noticed them staring and making snide comments and now they were going to kick him to death in the courtyard of the Seven Cats Inn as the shithole’s eponymous animals hissed and glared at the scene from the shadows. A fitting end for the fuck-up that was Lambert’s life.

“Mutant thinks he can come in here and threaten us normal folk. Well, how’s that working out for you now, freak?”

It didn’t even hurt much actually. The alcohol was numbing everything. There were certainly worse ways to leave this world than too drunk to care.

“There’s been a plague of sodding undead all over lately too! Probably breed them so you can fleece the honest population for coin!”

There was also a fucking war on and corpses littering the fields like wildflowers, but Lambert wasn’t really in the position to argue necrophage breeding and migration habits. He closed his eyes and stopped trying to breathe.

“We’ll show you we ain’t scared of no- Ahhh!” There was an awful feline yowling and hissing, followed by an excessive amount of swearing.

“What happened?”

“Fucking cat! I stepped on a fucking cat!”

“Are you okay?”

“Do I Iook ploughin’ okay? I broke my godsdamn ankle!”

“The witcher-”

“Leave it and help me! I can’t bleedin’ walk! Shit!”

In a few minutes, his breathing got easier despite the lack of attention he was giving it, mutations dumbly doing their job in keeping him alive regardless of his wishes. He rolled onto his back as it started to rain and finally lost consciousness.

“You look like hell.”

At the sound of that voice, Lambert snapped his eyes open to find himself leaning back against a fence in a painfully familiar field of long sweet grass on a slightly gloomy afternoon in early autumn. Everything was exactly as he remembered it, except Aiden was on the other side of the fence. That wasn’t right. He was supposed to be on the same side as Aiden. He couldn’t climb the thing, how he knew he couldn’t climb it was a mystery, but he could see a gate a ways away and started out for it immediately.

“Whoa!” Jogging to catch up with him, Aiden grabbed his hand over the fence and intertwined their fingers. He was probably just trying to slow Lambert down by making him drag the bulk of the Cat witcher along behind him, but what he actually did was stop Lambert dead in his tracks.

Lambert stared at his hand in Aiden’s. “We never did this.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “I’ll let go if you want.”

“No!” Lambert knew he said it too quickly, but couldn’t find it in him to care right now. “No,” he repeated softer a second later, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Okay then,” Aiden squeezed his hand almost too hard, just the right side of painful, just like Lambert liked to be hugged, “then I won’t.” He tugged Lambert around so they were standing face to face. “So why do you look like hell?”

“You’re dead.” Lambert hadn’t really been thinking of answering Aiden’s question; thinking here felt like swimming through cold molasses and he’d just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. He supposed it was actually, though indirectly, the answer to Aiden’s question as well.

A cocky eyebrow quirked up in a look Lambert knew well. “And I’m still prettier than you. What happened?”

“I killed Jad Karadin. And the others: Vienne, Selyse, Hammond, Lund. I killed them all. Geralt helped.” He was babbling and, he realized, probably dreaming, but if this was the only closure he was going to get he’d be damned if he didn’t take it.

“No shit? Geralt of fucking Rivia? You must have really given him the puppy dog eyes.”

Lambert didn’t respond audibly, but let his head fall forward until it rested on Aiden’s chest, where his heart wasn’t beating.

“Did it make you feel better?”

He barked out a short laugh. “No. Damn it, he had kids, Aiden, a wife even. He’d moved on, even said he regretted offing you: that it was all just an unfortunate accident. I murdered him in his backyard and it didn’t make me feel any better and it didn’t bring you back, but what the fuck else was I supposed to do?”

Aiden squeezed his hand again where he was holding it and brought his other hand up to the back of Lambert’s neck to soothingly tease his fingers in the soft little hairs at the nape of his neck. “I’d have killed him too. If it’d been you. I’d have made his wife and kids fucking watch as I disemboweled him slowly.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Mmm. But you love me.”

“Loved.”

“No, pet. That’s not how it works.”

Lambert gasped and opened his eyes as the bucket of cold water sloshed over him. At least he hoped it was water. Given his own general stench however it was impossible to tell. He sputtered as he fumbled to a sitting position and glared at the matron who had doused him. Two barmaids were hidden behind her with broomsticks, but the older woman didn’t look like she needed the backup. “We’ve got rooms for you to sleep it off in if you’ve the coin, but given the look of you I somehow doubt you do. The stable’s also available, for a more modest fee. Or you can go sleep in the fields for all I care, just not in our yard.”

With a groan, the battered witcher tried to drag himself to his feet.

“Mom,” one of the girls whined quietly, a purring cat twisting itself around her ankles.

The bucket wielding woman rolled her eyes and sighed. “Sleep in the stable. No fee. There’s only a few hours ‘til dawn anyways.”

In the morning, the same shy girl saw that he was given a barrel of cold water to wash in, some bread and cheese and lukewarm tea and it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to get him to Kaer Morhen, where he was immediately pulled into Geralt’s bullshit quest, because of course he is. It’s not so bad though. It’s something to do and he does want to help Ciri. Geralt too, if he’s being honest. And it does help him: being around people who care for him. And getting blackout drunk with his brothers is so much better than getting blackout drunk alone.

*

Lambert had to admit it was a good plan: what Geralt came up with to defend the keep from the Wild Hunt. I mean, it was suicide really, trying to stand against them with as few as they were, but a good plan nevertheless. Knowing this, Lambert was tired, sore and out of bombs when the Aen Elle finally cornered him, but not terribly surprised. They’d had a strong start, what with the sneaking around invisibly and taking out their scouting parties with Letho and Geralt, but as soon as the main force started teleporting in it was essentially a foregone conclusion. That didn’t mean that Lambert was just going to roll over and take it though.

He threw up Quen only to have it battered instantly into so many sparkling fragments of light by a vicious warhammer, but, feeling the cost deep in the hollow of his bones, threw it up again as he danced out of the way of the backswing. He knew he had the dexterity to get inside the fucker’s range, but he didn’t have the space. The whole courtyard was filled with the fucking foreign elves. He felt an ineffectual hit against the back of his shield, probably an arrow, and focussed on making a bit of room for himself to move. The asshole with the warhammer was herding him though, pushing him further and further back into a corner where the stone walls met and Lambert wouldn’t be able to swing his sword, let alone dodge and parry. He Igni-ed the Rider of the Wild Hunt coming up on his left and punched silver through her breast, felling her, but retreating from the fellow who came to take his fallen comrade’s place put him right in the path of the warhammer again. His Quen shattered and lacking the metaphysical reserves to restore it, Lambert rolled backwards until he felt the wall behind him. Panting to his feet, he prepared for one final charge.

He stepped forward with his left foot, but it landed on something slick and the damn thing shot out from under him. He landed, hard, on his elbows, biting his tongue with the impact. The warhammer whizzed harmlessly over his head as Lambert found himself staring through his assailant’s legs into the yellow eyes of a cat, several feet away and cowering from the commotion under a trough. Shock at seeing the animal kept Lambert down another second, which should have really been the end of it, but an inferno engulfed the air above him.

Keira Metz looked vaguely surprised to see him sit up in the pile of charred corpses. She recovered quickly however. “You’re welcome.”

“Did you even know I was there? Or did you just figure that barbecuing me was worth the price of taking them out?”

“Please,” she flicked a loose strand of hair out of her face and turned to face the newly opening portal. “You’re not even singed.”

Lambert had only a second to recognize what he’d slipped in, cat shit of all things, before the fight was on again. By the time the fight was over, Ciri’s heart wrenching scream ultimately turning the tide, Lambert found himself, rather incomprehensibly, still alive. Though as he ignored Merigold’s efforts to try to let her bandage him and wrapped a blanket around himself to collapse into his bed with, he did it in a world that no longer contained Vesemir.

“Shh, love, shh.” He could smell the sweet grass and far off cattle and Aiden’s musk as he hugged him through the fence slats while he sobbed.

“This is fucking embarrassing.” Lambert hiccoughed. His back was to the fence again, but he was sitting this time, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. It was like he was trying to make himself into a ball, as small as possible. He hadn’t done that in years, decades really, not since the last time a father had hurt him, althought that had been with his presence rather than his absence. Old fucking habits died hard apparently.

Aiden, arms awkwardly wrapped around his shoulders, but unable to cross the boundary more than that, hummed softly. “No one here but us. And I’ve seen you cry before.”

“You have not.”

“Have too.”

“Have not.”

“Have too.”

“Name one time!”

He could almost feel the smirk on the back of his neck, so he turned, eyes still damp, to see it. “Let’s see,” Aiden feigned deep consideration, “there was Toussaint, in the vineyard. You were on your back and I had your hands pinned above your head and told you you weren’t allowed to touch yourself and could only come on my cock and you were-”

Lambert punched him in the shoulder. “Asshole. That’s not what I meant.”

“Stopped you crying though.” Aiden ran a gentle thumb through the tear tracks on his cheeks.

Embarrassed again, Lambert turned away and finished cleaning off his face himself. “I don’t even know what I’m crying for. I hated the man. He took me away from my mom. Made me into this.”

Aiden could have argued that there were extenuating circumstances, his father had sold him to Vesemir through the Law of Surprise in return for saving his life, the mages and tradition of the Wolf School made him a witcher, but he seemed content to just let Lambert rant.

“He beat me for trying to flee. He helped tie me to that fucking table. He stayed. He held my hand while I screamed. Fuck, Aiden, he kept the keep after the pogrom and Salamandra and everything. He made sure we always had somewhere to go home to. He let me come home. Every time. No matter what shit I said.”

“He loves you as best he can.”

“Loved.”

“No. That’s not what I said.”

In the morning there was porridge with honey and bacon and warm bread and eggs and a funeral. He let Merigold stitch his arm and tut at him about letting it fester. He didn’t fight with Yennefer, just let her hold her adopted daughter as she shook quietly. He humoured Keira’s advances; he wasn’t sure if the witch was feeling a little guilty for almost flambéing him or just high on surviving something unsurvivable, but either way he didn’t really have the luxury of passing up the chance to get his dick wet for free. He hadn’t… not since before Aiden, but she was good with her fingers and sharp with her teeth and it wasn’t what he really wanted but it was still nice. He heard Eskel swear he was going to let the keep fall into ruin and never return. He recognized it for the fucking lie it was.

The next year, Lambert called his Path over early and trudged up the mountain to Kaer Morhen before the leaves had even started to turn. There was a lot more work to be done than usual, since no one had been there all spring or summer, but he still had it done before the snow started. When Eskel got home, late, cold and battered, the keep was glowing warmly and there was stew on the fire ready for him and his fucking herd of goats had been cajooled out of the surrounding fields and into the courtyard for the winter. Just like always.

*

Lambert had killed it. Fifteen dead children lured into the woods by the corrupted dryad’s song were now avenged. Of course on the way back there had also been a leshen and some wolves, because that is just the kind of thing that fate liked to do to Lambert. Geralt got the epic, world-changing plotlines, Eskel got to fuck a succubus, Letho got to play the villain he so loved to pretend to be, and Lambert got extra monsters. Why the fuck not?

He had been doing pretty okay against the leshen, his last dimeritium bomb keeping it from summoning too many minions or royally fucking him up with those vines, but the sickly green powder wouldn’t stay in the air forever. It started to settle far before the leshen was safely out of commission. The clever thing to do would be to run: he was not getting paid for this shit and they were far enough into the forest that the damned thing probably wouldn’t run into many wayward villagers anyway, except would be dryad victim number sixteen was still standing at the edge of the clearing staring at the fight like an idiot and Lambert wasn’t sure he could carry the kid and make good enough time to outdistance the leshen. So he was fighting. The ravens clawing his face were the first indication the magic deadening dust was expended and he Aard-ed the birds away before Igni-ing the leshen. Ancient wood caught fire and burned with an almost pleasant cedar scent and an ungodly howl that would probably haunt his dreams if he lived to have any. He pressed the attack with silver, but didn’t see through the smoke a knot of vines spring out of the ground on his left. It punched into his hip like a club and Lambert could feel the damn joint dislocate. He crumpled to the ground in agony and rolled, blasting the thing with another Igni when he felt he was safely enough away. With a final groan, the leshen fell to ash.

Lambert pressed his sweaty forehead against the cool earth for a moment before remembering the wolves and the child. He jolted himself painfully to a sitting position and saw the kid was perfectly fine and, no longer compelled, the wolves had fucked off after easier prey. He sighed. “Okay kid, I can’t walk like this. I’m going to need you to-”

The child blinked once and took off at a dead sprint.

Lambert sighed again. Of course, now his fight or flight response kicks in. At least he bolted in the right direction. With any luck he’d tell the villagers what had happened and they’d come out to rescue Lambert. Or he’d tell the villagers what had happened and they’d figure out that their problem was solved and they could just leave him to rot in the forest thereby never having to pay him. He knew which one was more likely. Gritting his teeth, Lambert started to drag himself forward.

He didn’t get very far before it became too much. He was exhausted and his blood toxicity was already skyrocketed from his fight with the cursed dryad when the leshen had attacked. He couldn’t take a potion to help with the pain or increase his stamina without poisoning himself and he didn't have any White Honey to soothe his shattered system. His hip was throbbing incessantly, jarred with every inch he crawled. His muscles screamed and his vision swam and, defeated, Lambert finally closed his eyes.

When he opened them he wasn’t surprised to find himself standing in the field in front of the fence. This time though he was right in front of the open gate. Fuck it. He’d earned his rest. Taking one last deep breath, Lambert walked forward.

“No you fucking don’t.” Aiden was standing in the gap and shoved Lambert back, hard.

“What?” He hadn’t been there a second ago, Lambert was sure, but as always, it was hard to form coherent thoughts here. “Why not?”

“Because I said so. You keep your stupid ass on that side.”

Lambert just blinked. “Aiden, I’m tired. I’m sore. I saved the kid. I just wanna fall asleep in your arms. Let me through.”

The Cat witcher just stubbornly crossed his aforementioned arms. “No.”

“This is ridiculous! You’re dead! You’re just some kind of stupid dream I keep having! You don’t get a say in this!” Lambert tried to charge the gate again only to get Aard-ed back on his ass.

“Dream or not, you’re not getting through this fucking gate. Not today.”

Lambert sputtered to his feet. “What is wrong with you?”

“Oh, I'm sure there's any number of people who could give you a laundry list of deficits, but I’d say the root of this particular altercation is that I love you.”

“For fuck’s sake, Aiden, loved!” Lambert brought both hands down on Aiden’s shoulders and shoved, but he couldn’t move the man even an inch.

Aiden brought his own hands to Lambert’s waist. His shirt rucked up slightly and the wind was just as chilly as he remembered when Aiden kissed him. “No, idiot. One day you’ll figure it out.”

“Lambert!”

His eyes snapped open to see Eskel, looking very concerned, staring down at him. He was about to ask how his brother had found him when the pain came back in a rush and all that he managed was a low groan.

“Ha,” Eskel laughed in relief, “still here. Thank the gods.”

“Gods?” Lambert felt unreasonably disoriented and there was a sweet taste in his mouth. “Honey? You gave me White Honey?”

“You were pale as a damn sheet and I could see every black vein in your body.” Eskel fussed at his hip, repositioning him despite his whining protests. “And you’re gonna need some Swallow after I pop that back in.”

“No! Wait! Can’t I get drunk first? Ah! Eskel!” Why the fuck did it hurt more going back in than it had coming out? In what world did that make sense? His vision blacked out with the pain, but he didn’t lose consciousness. Eskel, the absolute bastard, sat beside him and patted him soothingly on the back until he was feeling together enough to take the proffered Swallow. “Cunt.”

“I’m strong, but I’m not carry your stupid ass miles back to civilization strong.” Eskel was not in the least apologetic. “We can sleep here tonight and you can limp back for your pay tomorrow.” He quickly and efficiently started setting up camp, but did pause to, belatedly in Lambert’s opinion, offer him a bottle of vodka.

Sulking, drinking and watching Eskel work, curiosity finally got the better of him and Lambert asked, “How did you find me anyway?”

“Ah!” Eskel flushed slightly. “It was actually the damndest thing. I saw the same notice you did I assume and went to the alderman to ask about the job. They said they already had a witcher on it. I was going to move on, but there was this cat.”

Lambert paused, bottle partway to his lips. “Cat?”

“Yeah.” His older brother looked sheepish and scratched the back of his head with one large hand. “You know how they hate us? Always hissing and shit? Well this one was purring at me and I thought-”

The rest of the sentence was too quiet for even Lambert’s enhanced hearing to pick up. “You thought?”

“I thought I could pet it, okay!” Eskel huffed his embarrassment. “It looked soft and it was purring and I thought maybe it would let me pet it so I followed it into the woods a ways.” Finished with the meagre camp, he flopped back down beside Lambert and snatched the vodka from him. “But then I caught your stupid trail and figured you could use a hand and found you dying of toxicity in a pile on the ground like a first year.”

“A cat.” Lambert repeated it to himself. It didn’t make any more sense the second time.

“They’re supposed to have nine lives, you know.” Eskel passed the bottle back and offered Lambert some of the dried jerky from his bag. He’d go hunting later, but this would tide them over for the afternoon.

“What?”

“Cats. They’re supposed to have nine lives. They’re lucky like that.”

Lambert snorted. “Humans drown unwanted kittens by the sackful. Doesn’t sound lucky to me.”

Eskel knocked his shoulder playfully, but gently against Lambert’s. “You’re awfully cheery for someone who just cheated death himself.” He sighed and swiped the bottle back for another drink. “Dandelion had another story about cats he told me once. It was about this cat that was so in love with someone that he gave them his nine lives.”

“So I have to die eight times in total before I’m allowed past the fence?”

Eskel stared at him in confusion. “What?”

Lambert shook his head to clear it. “So this person had to die eight times before it stuck then?”

“Hmm. I don’t know if there was an exact number in the song. I think there was something about the gods blessing the sacrifice and magnifying the gift ninefold?” Now in full on scholar-mode, Eskel continued quickly. “You can’t take that as an exact number though. Ninefold was frequently used in myths of the period to just mean ‘many times.’ Estes’ ‘Journey to the North’ from the same period talks about the snowstorm magnifying the expedition’s troubles ninefold and you can’t take that to mean nine times literally. Ninefold also pops up in a plethora of hymns to Melitele. You’ve got the triple goddess herself tripled. In the same vein, you also see eighty-one used as a metaphor for forever, since it’s nine by nine. I read once-”

Lambert nodded off peacefully to Eskel’s soothing drone.

*

The next time he met Aiden in the liminal space of that lost afternoon, he worked up the courage to ask him, “Did you make me immortal?”

Aiden laughed brightly and flicked his forehead. “I don’t think anyone has the power to do that.”

“So I do have to die eight times.”

“Hmm. I don’t know if there’s an exact number-”

“Oh, don’t you fucking start with that!” Lambert let himself be pulled into Aiden’s laughing embrace.

“Gods, the look on your face. I swear. Priceless.”

They stayed wrapped up in each other for another minute. Minutes was all they normally had here.

Finally, Lambert asked, “You ever gonna let me over to your side?”

Aiden hummed noncommittally in response. “One day. I do miss interacting with you, you know. But not yet. I like seeing you over there. I like what you’re doing with the keep - letting Ciri and her circus friends use it as a school and winter resting place. I like that you try to make wine with Geralt - you’re absolutely shit at it by the way. I like that you still lose at Gwent to Dandelion nine times out of ten - he is absolutely cheating, but I’m not telling you how. I like watching you mess around with Keira whenever you run into her - you’re both very hot and have a lot of fun together. And I love watching you fight, watching you save people, watching you drink and laugh and sleep and smile.”

“You’re not jealous?” He spoke very softly, but it’s not like Aiden needed his ears to hear him anyway. It had been an ever present fear from the moment he woke up that first morning, hungover beyond all possible belief, and decided to stop actively drinking himself to death: that he had no right to be alive with Aiden dead.

“No, I’m not jealous. Idiot.” The kiss on his forehead softened the insult.

He could feel himself waking up, someone or something coming to his rescue, but before he was pulled away he managed to say, “Because you still love me.”

And he managed to see Aiden’s answering smile. “Now you’re getting it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on tumblr ([Octinary](https://octinary.tumblr.com)) if you want to chat or ask me anything!
> 
> There is now a very short coda to this [here](https://octinary.tumblr.com/post/635658829867237376/a-little-ficlet-for-kya-since-she-wanted-a-coda).


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